Regular Food in Jars contributor Alex Jones drops by to offer a delicious DIY snack – crispy shiitake mushrooms! I wish I had a batch to nibble right now! -Marisa

I consider myself incredibly lucky to work alongside sustainable farmers and food producers here in southeast Pennsylvania. This community has changed my life for the better in more ways than one: it’s given me work, purpose, inspiration, and an education around food and agriculture.

And, of course, there’s the ability to share in the bounty that comes along with running a CSA or working a farmers’ market.

I’ve written about my friends at Primordia Farmbefore — they’re a first-generation clan of mushroom farmers and foragers, growing beautiful fungi high on Hawk Mountain in Berks County, right near the Appalachian Trail. And with them as my farmers’ market neighbors, I’m lucky to have access to delicious, immaculately grown mushrooms year-round.

While there are a million recipes you can make with the mushrooms they grow — shiitake, maitake (also known as hen of the woods), royal trumpet, lion’s mane — my favorite preparations tend to be the simplest, making the most of the unique textures and flavors that these fascinating organisms bring to the kitchen.

Sure, you can sautée or roast up a batch of just about any mushroom in butter, olive, or coconut oil and it’ll be tasty. But I’m the only mushroom eater in my household — so if I don’t have a specific dish in mind for my fungi, I tend to turn them into one on of my favorite kinds of food: crunchy, crispy, salty snacks.

While both maitake and royal trumpet mushrooms can achieve a pleasantly crunchy texture when broken into thin fronds (the former) or sliced into planks or rounds (the latter), my favorite ‘shroom to snack-ify is shiitake. They’re easy to trim, and their round shape is somewhat chip-like — and when roasted with olive oil and a big pinch of sea salt, they’re incredibly delicious.

If you can, start with a batch of shiitakes that are consistently sized — or cut larger caps into halves or quarters before roasting so they cook a little more evenly.

The caps will shrink, too. So if you want shiitake snacks large enough to dollop with herbed fromage blanc or a punchy blue cheese spread (for example) for a little party hors d’oeuvre, choose larger mushrooms. If you want to add some bacon bits-esque umami and crunch to a salad, for example, smaller mushrooms are just fine to use.

First, make sure your mushrooms are clean — brush them off if you must, but don’t wash them or get them wet. (Thanks to their growing methods, Primordia’s mushrooms are never dirty.) Next, trim the stems from your shiitakes. You can do this with a paring knife or (my preference) a pair of kitchen shears. Toss the stems into the bag of veggie scraps in your freezer that you save for stock.

Then put your caps into a large bowl with a few big glugs of olive oil, then quickly toss them around to coat — the mushrooms will absorb that oil right away, so add another glug or two and repeat. Toss with a big pinch of salt, then spread the caps, gill-side-up, onto a baking sheet in a single layer.

Bake them at 400 degrees, checking every 10 minutes or so. Your timing will vary depending on the size of your mushrooms and the temperament of your oven — this batch took about 35 minutes in mine, which tends to run cool. Be sure to rotate the pan each time you check; you can also pull out the pan and flip each cap over with tongs — but to be honest, I usually skip this step.

As the mushrooms get closer to doneness, the smaller caps will start to curl and crisp up before the larger ones. The trick is to pull out the pan when the larger pieces are crispy as possible without burning the little guys. (The ones in this photo actually darkened a little more than I would have liked between the time I pulled them out of the oven and took this last shot. They still tasted fine, though.) So be careful not to overdo it.

Once your mushrooms are done, you can toss them with just a little more olive oil and any additional spices — like fresh-ground black pepper, smoked paprika, herbs, or toasted sesame seeds, for example — and let them sit until they’re cool enough to handle (the umami aroma in your kitchen will make it hard to wait this long).

I suppose you could store the crisped mushrooms in a sealed jar on your countertop for a day or two, once they’ve cooled completely.

But to be honest, I’ve never gotten that far — in my house, they get devoured in a matter of minutes.

Remove any dirt that may be clinging to the caps of your mushrooms, but do not get them wet. Trim off stems and discard or save for veggie stock. Halve or quarter any large caps so that they're more consistent with the majority of the cap sizes.

Toss the caps in a bowl with a few tablespoons of olive oil. After the first mixing, add a few tablespoons more and toss again. Add a big pinch of kosher salt and toss one more time.

Lay out the caps in a single layer, gill side up, on a baking sheet. Try not to let the mushrooms touch.

Bake for 25-40 minutes, checking every 5 minutes starting at the 20 minute mark. Rotate the pan halfway through the baking time; you can also use tongs and flip the caps, gill side down, halfway through cooking. The mushrooms are done when the edges of all the mushrooms are curling in and the smaller ones are crisp.

When done, remove the mushrooms from the oven, cool, and enjoy. Or, before cooling, toss with one last tablespoon of olive oil and optional additional flavors. Eat immediately.

I’m partnering today with True Value to share some canning tricks and recipe for canning peaches in syrup. Make sure to read through to the end for a chance to win a $50 True Value gift card!

As someone who does a lot of canning, I am often asked about my favorite places to get canning jars and equipment. One of my favorite places to recommend is True Value hardware store. Most locations carry the canning basics (though it’s always a good idea to call your local store and ask about their stock before hopping in the car).

If they don’t have it in stock, you can almost always order the jars online and use their ship-to-store option. That way, you can get exactly what you need, you don’t have to pay for all those heavy jars, and you support a local business.

For this post, I took a little field trip out to a True Value location near me. They had a wide range of jars, as well as pickling salt, basic canning tools, a copy of the latest edition of the Ball Blue Book, and even a replacement pressure canner weight (while it looked like it had been there for awhile, those things don’t expire, so it was still good).

Any time you tackle a canning project, you want to take stock of what you have. You’ll need a large pot to serve as your boiling water bath canner (you can find more detail about that here), as well as a rack to drop in the bottom. This lifts the jars off the bottom of the pot and allows the water to circulate. I often use the flexible silicone trivet pictured above, but a round cake cooling rack is also a really good option.

You also need the tools that come in the canning Utensil Kit (jar lifter, wide mouth funnel, and headspace measure), and a heatproof spoon or spatula with which to stir.

When you’re ready to get started, take the jars out of their packaging. Remove the lids and rings and wash the jars, lids, and rings in warm soapy water. I’ve been in the factory where Ball jars are fitted with lids, boxed, and sealed and it not a sterile environment. Those jars my look clean, but they’re filled with factory dust and residue. Wash them.

Once your jars squeaky clean, fit your rack into the bottom of the canning pot and arrange your jars on top. Fill the jars with warm tap water and then fill the pot up to the rims of the jars.

Set that pot on the stove, add a healthy splash of white vinegar (this helps keep your jars and pot clean, and if you have hard water, will prevent any minerals from depositing on your jars). Bring the pot to boil and reduce the heat to your lowest simmer, to keep the jars warm.

The rule of thumb is that hot food needs to go into hot jars. While mason jars are designed to withstand temperature changes of up to 90 degrees F, any more of a change could cause thermal shock which will lead to breakage.

Now that your jars are ready, it’s time to start making your preserve. We’re in the midst of peach season here in Philadelphia and so I opted to make a small batch of preserved peach quarters, packed in a light syrup. For those of you concerned about the amount of sugar, know that it doesn’t really sink into the peaches too much, and will greatly help prevent the peaches from browning. However, if you prefer, you can also pack these peaches in fruit juice.

First, make the syrup. Combine 3 cups of water with 3/4 cups granulated sugar in a 4 quart saucepan. Add 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice (this is present to help prevent browning) and bring to a simmer. Stir occasionally to ensure that the sugar dissolves.

Cut three pounds of peaches into quarters, remove the pits, and arrange the peaches in a heatproof baking dish (it’s best to do this in your sink). Bring a kettle of water to a boil. Once it is hot, pour it over the peaches and let them sit for 2-3 minutes.

When the time is up, run cold water over the peaches. Provided that the peaches were ripe enough (peeling underripe peaches is torture), the peels should lift off easily. As you work, gently slide each peeled peach quarter into the hot syrup so that the amount of time the peaches are exposed to the air is limited.

Once all the peaches are peeled and in the pot, bring the syrup to a boil and cook for one minute. Remove the pot from the heat. Pull the hot canning jars out of the canning pot and arrange them on a folded kitchen towel. Position a wide mouth funnel on top of a jar and use a slotted spoon to portion the hot peach quarters into the jars.

Top the jars with syrup and use a utensil like a wooden chopstick or the bubbling tool that comes in the utensil kit to ease out any trapped air bubbles. Fill the jars with syrup, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Wipe the rims of the jars with a damp paper towel. Center a clean lid on the jar and apply the ring. Tighten it only until it meets resistance. You don’t want to overtighten it, as that could cause the lid to buckle during processing. Place the jars in the canner, put the lid on, and bring the pot up to a rolling boil. Process the peaches in your canning pot for 20 minutes (if you live at elevations above 1,000 feet, you’ll need to increase your processing time. Check out the chart here).

When the time is up, turn off the heat, pull the canner off the hot burner, and remove the lid. Let the jars cool in the canning pot for five minutes (this helps prevent liquid from siphoning out of the jars and produces a stronger seal). Once that time is up, remove the jars from the pot and set them back on the folded kitchen towel.

Let them cool undisturbed for at least 12 hours. Once that time is up, check the seals. If the lids are concave and seem strongly adhered to the jars, you are good. Wipe any sticky residue off the jars and store in a cool, dark place. For the best quality peaches, eat them within a year.

This post was written in partnership with True Value hardware. As part of our agreement, they gave me $100 to spend on canning gear at my local shop. I only ended up spending about half what they allocated and so I’ve decided to share the remaining $50 True Value gift card with one of you! Please use the widget below to enter.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of True Value. The opinions and text are all mine.

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Regular Food in Jars contributor Alex Jones is here to with a recipe to preserve delicious shishito peppers. They’re one of my summer favorites! – Marisa

One of my favorite moments of summer eating doesn’t involve handfuls of blueberries, icy-cold slices of watermelon, or peaches so juicy you have to eat them over the sink. (Although those firsts fruits are up there on the list.) It’s when I spy the first shishito peppers at the farmers’ market.

When I first see those wrinkly, electric green peppers heaped in a basket or bursting out of a fiber pint container, I know I have to have them.

Back my kitchen with my market bounty, I’ll get my cast iron pan ripping hot with a glug of grapeseed oil and add the peppers, cooking for a few minutes on each side until the skin is blistered deep brown and the flesh is just tender. Then, they go into a bowl with a big three-finger pinch of flaky sea salt. A few flicks of the wrist to toss, and then I’ll sit down and eat them all, one by one.

But inevitably, shishito season ends, and it’s rare to find them off-season in supermarkets, so I have to wait for that smoky, salty experience until next year’s pepper feast…unless I can preserve it.

After cooking and devouring the first pint of the peppers I brought home from the Urban Girls Produce stand in Clark Park last week, I knew what my hot-pack project for July’s Mastery Challenge would be: those precious shishitos, with some of that irresistible charred goodness and plenty of bright, tart flavor from the pickling liquid.

I picked a basic brine recipe and decided I’d pack the jars out with garlic, shallots, and black peppercorns for bite. (While I’ve read that one in 10 shishitos can pack a little heat, I’ve never had one like that — they’re quite mild.) And since it’s bursting out of my front yard garden plot, I ran down and picked a nice big handful of basil — lime and opal — to infuse their flavor.

First, I prepped a water bath canner, lids, and jars and set my cast iron to get nice and hot. Then, I snipped the long stems off of the peppers and sorted them into two batches, slightly smaller and slightly bigger, to help them cook evenly.

When the pan just started to smoke, I added the peppers, letting the skins blister for about three minutes so that the skin was nice and brown before flipping them over for another two. (You don’t want to cook them through, just blister the skin enough to tenderize them and add flavor.)

I put a little pot of brine on to boil, packed my jars, topped them off, and processed them for 10 minutes. Of course, I kept a few of the cooked peppers to snack on while my the canner bubbled away.

The next day, I opened one jar to find out if my experiment had worked. The aroma when I popped the lid was amazing — and while the peppers are a little softer than they would be fresh out of the pan, that smoky flavor I crave was there, plus lots of zing from the aromatics and vinegar.

These peppers would be amazing on an antipasti board, served alongside a rugged sharp cheddar or savory Manchego, or on a sandwich loaded with cold cuts and crisp lettuce. Or, as is my preference, all for me and straight out of the jar.

Wash and dry peppers and trim stems if necessary. Sort peppers into two bowls, one for larger-sized peppers and one for smaller peppers.

Heat a medium-sized cast-iron skillet on high. When the pan is hot, add a tablespoon or two of the oil and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan.

When the oil just begins to smoke, add one of the two bowls of peppers, taking care not to crowd them (you may need to do this in a few batches). Let the peppers cook for two to three minutes on high, checking the skins occasionally. When most of the peppers have blistered dark brown, flip and cook on high for another two minutes. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, put the peppers back in the empty bowl to cool. Repeat with the other bowl of peppers, then set aside to cool.

Put vinegar, water, and pickling salt in a small saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil.

Crush and peel garlic and add two cloves to each jar. Peel shallots, slice in half, and add two halves to each jar. Distribute peppercorns and a few springs of the basil evenly between the two jars.

Once peppers have cooled, pierce each one with a knife so that pickling liquid can penetrate. Pack the peppers into the jars — they should be pretty soft by this point and easy to pack tightly.

When brine has boiled, remove from heat and carefully pour over the peppers in the jars. Wipe rims, apply lids and rings, and process in water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Sour cherries are one of my very favorite things to preserve. Sadly, thanks to a late freeze back in April, it is proving to be a very bad year for stonefruit in the Philadelphia region. Sour cherries are proving to be very hard to come by.

Instead of bemoaning the 2016 sour cherry situation (though I must confess, I was able to get some from my friends’ community garden, so I’m not totally without them this year), I decided to take some of the sweet cherries from the Northwest Cherries shipment, and do what I could to give them a flavor profile similar to that of a sour cherry.

I measured out two and a half pounds of the sweet cherries and using my trusty paring knife, cut them in quarters and wiggled out the pits (I don’t like using cherry pitters, because I resent how much cherry flesh you lose with every pit. Quartering them is fiddly work, but so much more of the fruit ends up in the pot).

Once the cherries were prepped, I combined them with sugar, apple cider vinegar, and lemon juice and let them sit until all the sugar was dissolved. Then I set the pot on the stove, brought it to a boil, and cooked the fruit until the cherries were tender (but not falling apart) and the liquid had thickened slightly.

Towards the end of cooking, I took a tiny taste of the syrup in the pot and was so happy with the results. Bright, sweet, and just tart enough that you feel a pleasant shiver in the back of your throat. This is one for sparkling water, pairing with cheese, or eating with a pork chop.

Last weekend, I taught a canning and preserving workshop at the Omega Institute in the Hudson Valley. On my drive up there, my car was packed to the gills with pots and pans, jars, bowls, cutting boards, jars (I brought 13 cases and ended up dashing out between sessions for two more boxes of quarter pints), and well over 100 pounds of produce.

Of the 12 preserves we made over the course of the weekend, a full five featured peaches. We canned them in quarters, made peach salsa, tossed slices in cinnamon and dehydrated them, did a batch of chunky, vanilla-laced jam, and finally made jelly out of the peach-flavored juice leftover from canning the quarters. It is, after all, the season for peach canning.

One thing we did not do was make pickled fruit (though I did consider it when building the class schedule). We were making a chutney and doing a couple of other styles of pickling as well, so there just wasn’t room. However, had we had just a little more time, I would have slipped in this recipe for pickled peaches.

There is something about pickled fruit that I just really like. A few slivers spooned from a jar easily serves as a sweet, bright, and tangy counterpoint to any number of meals (and is particularly welcome during the relentless cold and grey of winter). I particularly like to braise well-salted chicken thighs in a slurry of browned onions slices and pickled peach segments. Served over creamy millet, it’s a winner of a dish come November.

The eagle-eyed among you might look and this recipe and think that it looks familiar. If you have this thought, you are not wrong. The brine is identical to the one I use for my Gingery Pickled Blueberries and works equally well with peeled pear slices. Pickled fruit. It’s hard to go wrong.

Note: You may notice that in these pictures, the peaches are not peeled, yet in the recipe below, I tell you to peel them. I was feeling particularly lazy the day I made these and skipped the peeling step. If you don’t mind having the skins on, feel free to be like me. However, for a more refined pickled peach, remove the skins.

Cut peaches into quarters and remove pits. Place in a large, heatproof baking dish. Bring a kettle of water to a boil as you prep the peaches.

Once all the peaches are cut, place the pan in the skin, and pour the boiling water over them. Set a timer for three minutes.

While the peaches resting in the water so that their skins loosen, combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and ginger slices in a four quart saucepan and bring to a simmer.

When the time is up, tip the hot water out of pan and run cold tap water over the peaches to make them cool enough to handle.

Remove the peels from the peach segments. If you start at the stem end, they should come free fairly easily. Use a paring knife on any tough bits. If your peaches are quite large, you can cut them into thinner slices (that's what I did in the batch pictured above).

As you work, slip each peeled peach bit into the simmering pickling liquid.

Once all the peaches are peeled, remove the jars from your canning pot.

Using a slotted spoon, divide the peach segments between the jars. Top with the hot pickling liquid, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Make sure to tuck 2 or 3 ginger slices into each jar.

Use a chopstick to wiggle out any trapped air bubbles and add more liquid, if necessary.

Wipe the jar rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 20 minutes.

When time is up, remove jars from canner and place them on a folded kitchen towel to cool. When jars are cool enough to handle, remove rings and check seals. Any unsealed jars should be kept in the refrigerator.

Let jars sit for at least 24 hours before eating to all the flavors to settle.

There is a park near my apartment that hosts two weekly farmers markets. I almost always go to the Saturday market, but often miss the mid-week one. It takes place on Tuesdays from 10 am to 2 pm and so often, by the time I remember that it’s happening, I’ve already missed it.

Last week, though, the stars were aligned in my favor. I had been out running errands and on my walk home spotted the cheery row of white tents set up along the north edge of the square. It was nearly 2 pm, but the vendors all still had good things on offer. I bought three quarts of yellow and green beans for pickling, a half pint of black raspberries, and five pounds of hail-marked peaches for $5.

The peaches were a little beat up but it was nothing some careful work with a paring knife couldn’t fix. I set them out to ripen for a couple days and applied myself to the rest of the produce. I trimmed the beans, fit them into a large jar with garlic and spices, and covered them with brine (we’ll talk more about those next week when they’re finished fermenting). The raspberries? Those I ate with my lunch.

A few days later, the peaches were ripe and ready for canning (and eating! I did set aside a few for snacking). I considered turning them into jam, but I just discovered a cache of peach vanilla jam in the back of the cabinet, so that seemed unnecessary. Instead, I decided to can them in fruit juice for later in the year when all available fruit is being shipped from the other side of the world.

Over the years, I’ve preserved fruit slices in syrups made from cane sugar, honey, and agave nectar, but when it comes to ease and virtue, there’s nothing better than plain old apple juice. When I first started working on my natural sweeteners book, I got into the habit of keeping a few canisters of 100% juice concentrate in the freezer because they’re so useful during canning season.

I prepped the peaches by cutting them in quarters and laying them in a heatproof baking dish. Once they were ready, I put the pan in the sink (to help prevent large messes), brought a kettle of water to a boil and poured it over the peaches. This helps loosen the skins and when you’re working with relatively small amounts of peaches, makes for an easier peeling process.

Once the peach quarters had sat in the hot water for about three minutes, I lifted a corner of the pan and tipped out most of the hot water. Then I ran some cool water from the tap over the fruit. Then, I peeled the skins off the peach segments. They lifted away easily enough, though some benefited from a little paring knife assistance.

I’d prepped the juice ahead of time (using the regular dilution of one can of concentrate to three cans of water) and brought it to a simmer in a four quart pot. After each peach segment was peeled, I dropped it into the hot juice. The acid content in the juice is enough to help prevent oxidation, and the heat helps the fruit release some of its trapped air, making for a finished product that should siphon less that peaches that were done using the cold pack method.

Once all the peaches were peeled and in the simmering juice, I pulled three clean, hot 1/2 liter Weck tulip jarsout of my prepped canning pot and filled them with peach slices. I ladled in enough juice to cover, leaving about 1/4 inch headspace (make sure to wiggle out any trapped air bubbles).

Finally, I wiped the rims, eased on the seals and lids, and clamped them in place with the metal clips. Because they were a hot packed product, these jars (which are the functional equivalent of pint jars) spent just 20 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.

Once the time was up, I slide the pot off the hot burner, removed the lid, and let the jars cool for ten minutes still in the water. This is another way to help prevent the siphoning of the liquid to which whole fruit is so prone.

Finally, I pulled the jars out of the water and let them rest on a folded kitchen towel. You can always tell with Weck jars that they’ve formed a seal because the little rubber tab will point downward.

And there you have it! Peaches packed in all-natural fruit juice. Delicious in January (or anytime)!

Cut peaches into quarters and remove pits. Place in a large, heatproof baking dish. Bring a kettle of water to a boil as you prep the peaches.

Once all the peaches are cut, place the pan in the sink, and pour the boiling water over them. Set a timer for three minutes.

While the peaches resting in the water so that their skins loosen, pour the juice into a four quart saucepan and bring to a simmer.

When the time is up, tip the hot water out of pan and run cold tap water over the peaches to make them cool enough to handle.

Remove the peels from the peach segments. If you start at the stem end, they should come free fairly easily. Use a paring knife on any tough bits.

As you work, slip each peeled peach bit into the simmering juice.

Once all the peaches are peeled, remove the jars from your canning pot.

Using a slotted spoon, divide the peach segments between the jars. Top with the hot juice, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Use a chopstick to wiggle out any trapped air bubbles and add more juice, if necessary.

Wipe the rims, apply the seals, lids, and clips, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 20 minutes.

When time is up, remove the lid from the pot and slide it off the hot burner. Let the jars rest in the pot for an additional 10 minutes, to help prevent siphoning.

Finally, remove the finished jars and set them on a folded kitchen towel to cool.

Sealed jars should be stored in a cool, dark place and should be eaten within about a year. Unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly.

Notes

For more exotic peaches, tuck a section of vanilla bean, a cinnamon stick or a bit of star anise into each jar. For something boozy, you can add a dash of bourbon or whiskey to each jar.

This recipe can be easily increased. As written, you will have a cup or two of juice leftover, so you can certainly add a pound or two of fruit without increasing the volume of fruit. Once you venture beyond six or so pounds of fruit, you will need more juice.

I have a big treat today! A guest post from Camille Storch! Camille is a writer, runner, and canner living with her family in rural Western Oregon. Her blog, Wayward Spark, focuses on small agriculture and sustainable living. Camille’s husband Henry is a commercial beekeeper who manages nearly 300 hives in the Willamette Valley and remote areas of the Oregon Coast Range. Through their business, Old Blue Raw Honey, Camille and Henry sell their unique varietal honeys at local events and online (I’ve tasted this honey and it is spectacular).

I got turned on to quince a couple years ago when I overheard my friend Ana, a pastry chef, ranting and raving about the fruit’s flavor, texture, and rosy metamorphosis in the cooking process. After getting my hands on some, they quickly became one of my fall favorites, and I’ve since tried out a number recipes including quince jelly and spiced quince leather.

Quince may seem exotic, and the fruits take a little more work to prepare than an apple or a pear, but the flavor of sweetened (perhaps spiced) quince is unrivaled and almost universally appealing.

Starting in late September, quince aren’t too hard to come by at farmers’ markets or even grocery stores ‘round these parts. For the last three years, I’ve had the privilege of visiting and harvesting from the quince orchard at the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, OR where more than 200 different quince cultivars from all over the world are planted.

This year, I put off my orchard trip until almost too late in the season, so only a few stragglers were left on the trees for me to pluck down. Luckily, I made off with just enough fruit for two batches of honey-vanilla bean quince preserves and one quince-boysenberry pie.

The following recipe was inspired by my friend Lisa who sometimes brings me fresh butter from her dairy cows but on one occasion brought me a jar of homemade quince preserves instead. I popped open the jar immediately, and then we sat around the kitchen table chatting and eating through a stack of pancakes smothered in chunky, rosy, quince-y goodness. Later when I asked for her recipe, I got only a few vague instructions, so I had to recreate her genius more or less on my own. Thankfully, the task wasn’t difficult at all.

Stir together the water, honey, vanilla bean, lemon, and star anise (if using) in a wide, non-reactive pot, and warm the liquid over medium heat.

Peel, quarter, and core the quince, taking great caution to avoid cutting yourself. As each quarter is prepared, add it to the warm poaching liquid. Bring the poaching liquid to a slow simmer (do not boil) and cook the fruit uncovered for at least two hours until the quince is soft. Stir occasionally but not too vigorously.

Remove the pot from the stove, let cool, and store in the refrigerator for 12-48 hours. (You can skip this step, but the finished preserves won’t be quite as deep red.)

Return the pot to the stove over low heat, and gently cook the fruit mixture until there is not much liquid remaining (another couple hours), and the preserves are starting to look sludgy. Remove the vanilla bean, lemon, and star anise (if using) from the pot.

Use a silicon spatula or wooden spoon to break the quince quarters into smaller chunks. Alternately you can mash the quince with a potato masher for a more uniform consistency. Keep simmering the mixture until a track behind a wood spoon dragged through the quince doesn’t fill in immediately. Remove from heat.

Fill jars, leaving ½” headspace, and wipe rims. Screw on lids and rings until “finger tight”. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Notes

This recipe requires a long cooking time, though very little active time after you’ve started things simmering away.

Of all the ways you can buy groceries in Philadelphia, the Italian Market is the most unique. It’s a blocks long market, made up of storefronts and curbside produce stands. It was originally entirely populated by Italian-owned stores and stalls, but over the years it has become increasingly multi-cultural.

There are butcher shops, fishmongers, coffee houses, sandwich joints, kitchenware stores, restaurants and produce stalls. It is slightly dirty, prices are often fluid and, in the winter time, they still light fires in giant metal cans to keep warm.

Often, the produce you find at the Italian Market isn’t local. In fact, there’s no way to know whether it’s from the US or somewhere increasingly far-flung. However, in late summer, you can occasionally find an incredible bargain on something grown just over the river in New Jersey. Such was the case for me last week.

I was in the market to pick up jars at Fante’s for a class (sometimes I feel like I’m constantly buying jars) and I walked by an enormous display of orange tomatoes. The signage proudly proclaimed that they were fresh from South Jersey and they were just a dollar for an overflowing two quart bucket. A single buck.

I brought them home and riffed on my standard tomato jam (in the last hours before we left for vacation). I reduced the sugar slightly, added vinegar to compensate for the lower acid levels of orange tomatoes (in addition to the lemon juice already present in the recipe) and made it fire-y with cayenne and smoked paprika. My yield was just 2 1/2 pints and after I was done, I wished there was time to dash back to 9th Street and pick up another dollar’s worth of tomatoes.

Combine all ingredients in a large, non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce temperature to a simmer. Stirring regularly, gently boil the jam until it reduces to a sticky, jammy mess. Cooking at a fairly rapid pace, it should take about an hour of cooking.

When the jam has cooked down sufficiently, remove from heat and fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch of head space. Wipe rims, apply lids and twist on rings. Process in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes.

When time is up, remove jars from water bath and allow them to cool. When jars are cool enough to handle, test seals. Store jars in a cool, dark place for up to one year.

There’s been a rapid up-tick in questions about tomato preservation in the last week, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to gather all my tomato-centric posts in one place. Before you shoot me an email with a tomato query, take a look through these posts because your answer may be there.

Canning Whole Peeled Tomatoes – A basic tutorial that will walk you through the steps of canning whole tomatoes packed in their own juices. This is my preferred method for canning tomatoes for use throughout the year.

Tomato Canning 101 – If you’re dealing with floating tomatoes, a separated product or loss of liquid during processing, read this post in order to set your worries to rest.

Last summer, I made tomato paste for the first time. I wasn’t too keen on when I first did it, but I must confess, it’s been incredibly useful throughout this year. So much so, that I’m thinking of biting the bullet and doing it again (if I’m able to get a really good deal on tomatoes in the next few weeks).

I’ve been writing a lot here in the last week and a half, but I realized that this morning, that none of it has really been the meat and potatoes of why this site exists. There’ve been a lot of announcements, notifications and favors done for friends, but no recipes. No ruminations on canning or anything really that makes up the heart and soul of Food in Jars.

For that, I apologize. I’ve been tangled up in four-part to-do list that hasn’t left me a lot of time for the kitchen. It’s been hard to find a groove for even the most basic cooking. Last night, I ate toasted corn tortillas of unknown age topped with melted cheese and sriracha and some roasted broccoli.

I decided to duck the demands of the to-do list for just a little while and show you a project I started back in February. Salt preserved key limes. I’ve had them fermenting on the kitchen counter for a few weeks and finally moved them to the fridge last night. The finished limes are nicely softened and have that same intoxicating salty tang that preserved lemons develop.

I started these as a grand experiment, after finding a one-pound bag of organic key limes while grocery shopping. I hoped that they’d work like lemons do when packed in salt. I was also hopeful that I’d be able to create something akin to the pickled limes featured in Little Women.

I didn’t hew to any particular recipe from the past. I trimmed the ends, cut them in half and packed them in salt, hoping that the exposed flesh would help the salt do it’s work of releasing juice and creating a briny liquid for the limes to rest in.

I didn’t measure the salt, but instead just covered each layer of limes with a generous spoonfuls of sea salt. Once the jar was filled, I shook it madly, trying to spread the salt and bruise the fruit a bit.

After a day, the limes weren’t expressing much in the way of liquid, so I helped things along by adding enough bottled lime juice to cover. I didn’t want my precious little limes to succumb to mold before they could ferment sufficiently.

Once covered with juice, they fermented happily on the kitchen counter a little less than a month. If you choose to make these, know that your time could vary from mine. Depending on the temperature of your kitchen, the amount of salt you used and the fruit’s ripeness, they could be ready sooner or later.

Make sure to put a small saucer or plate under the jar while they “cook” as there’s always a little bit of leaking brine with this kind of preserve. I forgot to do this in the beginning and the jar ended up stuck fast to the counter. I had to create a little puddle of water around its base to be able to move it. Even after years of preserving, I still make silly mistakes regularly.

Here’s what the finished limes look like. The fogginess comes from the bottled lime juice. Had I squeezed some fresh it would clearer. Thankfully, the taste is still strong and good.

You might be wondering what one does with salt preserved limes. Well, they can do anything that a preserved lemon can do, namely add a tart, salty bite to stews, tagines and other bits of rich meat.

However, I have discovered one particularly good partner for these limes. Avocados. The salty, fermented juice is a dream drizzled over a cut avocado (and helps prevent browning too!). You can mash up the pulpy flesh and a bit of the rind when making a batch of guacamole.

I must confess, there is another way I eat these. And that’s straight from the jar and sliced. My dentist wouldn’t approve (all that acid), but I like just a little nibble or two. On days when the things I’ve eaten have been boring or bland, just a taste of these limes brightens everything, including my attitude.